SCENE VI. Alarum. Enter King Henry alone.

K. Henry. This battle fares like to the morning's war, When dying clouds contend with growing light; What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, Can neither call it perfect day nor night. Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind; Now sways it that way, like the self-fame fea Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind. Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind; Now one the better, then another beft; Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, Yet neither conqueror nor conquered; So is the equal poise of this fell war. Here on this mole-hill will I fit me down: To whom God will, there be the victory! For Margaret my Queen, and Clifford too, Have chid me from the battle, swearing both, They profper best of all when I am thence. Would I were dead, if God's good will were so: For what is in this world but grief and woe ?

O God! methinks it were a happy life • To be no better than a homely fwain; • To fit upon a hill, as I do now,

• To carve out dials queintly, point by point, • Thereby to fee the minutes how they run : • How many make the hour full compleat,

How many hours bring about the day, • How many days will finish up the year, • How many years a mortal man may live. • When this is known, then to divide the time;

• So many hours must I tend my flock,

• So many hours must I take my reft,

• So many hours must I contemplate,

• So many hours must I sport myself,

So many days my ews have been with young,

• So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean,

• So many months ere I shall sheer the fleece:

So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years,

• Past over, to the end they were created,

• Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.

Ah! what a life were this! how sweet, how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade

To fhepherds looking on their filly theep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To Kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?
O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth,
And, to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leathern bottle,
His wonted fleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which fecure and sweetly he enjoys,

Is far beyond a prince's delicates,

His viands sparkling in a golden cup,

His body couched in a curious bed,

When care, mistrust, and treasons wait on him.

Alarum. Enter a Son that had kill'd his Father.

Son. Ill blows the wind that profits no body.

This man, whom hand to hand I flew in fight,
May be possessed with some store of crowns;
And I that haply take them from him now,
May yet, ere night, yield both my life and them
To fome man else, as this dead man to me.
Who's this? oh God! it is my father's face,
Whom in this conflict I un'wares have kill'd.
Oh heavy times, begetting such events!
From London by the King was I press'd forth;
My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,
Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;
And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,
Have by my hands of life bereaved him.
Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did;
And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.
My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks:
And no more words till they have flow'd their fill.

K. Henry. O piteous spectacle? O bloody times!
While lions war and battle for their dens,
Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.
Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear;
And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,
Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with grief,

Enter a Father, bearing his fon.

Fath. Thou that so stoutly haft refifted me, Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold; For I have bought it with an hundred blows. But let me fee. Is this our foe-man's face? Ah, no, no, no, it is my only fon ! Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee, Throw up thine eyes; fee, see, what showers arise, Blown with the windy tempest of my heart Upon thy wounds, that kill mine eye and heart. O pity, God, this miferable age! What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural, This deadly quarrel daily doth beget! O boy! thy father gave thee life too foon, And hath bereft thee of thy life too late.

K. Henry. Woe above woe, grief more than common

grief;

O that my death would stay these rueful deeds!
O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!
The red rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colours of our striving houses.
The one his purple blood right well resembles,
The other his pale cheek, methinks, presenteth.
Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!
If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.
Son. How will my mother, for a father's death,
Take on with me, and ne'er be fatisfy'd !

Fath. How will my wife, for flaughter of my fon,
Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be fatisfy'd!
K. Henry. How will the country, for these woful
Mif-think the King, and not be fatisfy'd!
(chances,

Son. Was ever son so ru'd a father's death! Fath. Was ever father so bemoan'd his fon! K. Henry. Was ever King so griev'd for subjects' woe! Much is your forrow, mine ten times so much.

Son. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill. [Exit.

Fath. These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet,

My heart, fweet boy, shall be thy fepulchre;
For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go,

My fighing breast shall be thy funeral-bell.
And so obsequious will thy father be,
Sad for the lofs of thee, having no more,
As Priam was for all his valiant fons.

I'll bear thee hence, and let them fight that will;
For I have murther'd where I should not kill.

[Exit.

K. Henry. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with

Here sits a King more woeful than you are.

SCENE VIII.

[care,

Alarum. Excursions. Enter the Queen, Prince of

Wales, and Exeter.

Prince. Fly, father, fly; for all your friends are fled, And Warwick rages like a chafed bull : Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.

Queen. Mount you, my Lord, toward Berwick post

amain.

Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds
Having the fearful flying hare in sight,
With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,
And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,
Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.

Exe. Away; for vengeance comes along with them.

Nay, stay not to expoftulate, make speed;
Or else come after, I'll away before.

K. Henry. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exe

Not that I fear to stay, but love to go [ter, Whither the Queen intends. Forward, away! [Exeunt.

SCENE IX. A loud alarum. Enter Clifford wounded.

Clif. Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies, Which while it lasted, gave King Henry light. O Lancaster! I fear thy overthrow, More than my body's parting with my foul. My love and fear glew'd many friends to thee. [Falling. And now I fall, thy tough commixtures melt, Impairing Henry, strength'ning mif-proud York. The common people swarm like summer-flies; And whither fly the gnats, but to the fun ? And who shines now, but Henry's enemies ? O Phœbus! hadst thou never giv'n confent

That Phaeton should check thy fiery steeds,
Thy burning car had never scorch'd the earth:
And, Henry, hadit thou sway'd as Kings should do,

Or as thy father and his father did,

Giving no ground unto the house of York,
They never then had sprung like summer flies.
I and ten thousand in this luckless realm

Had left no mourning widows for our death;
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.
For what doth cherish weeds, but gentle air?
And what makes robbers bold, but too much lenity?
Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds;
No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.
The foe is merciless, and will not pity;
For at their hands I have deserved no pity.
The air hath got into my deadly wounds,
And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.
Come, York, and Richard, Warwick, and the rest;
I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms, split my breaft.

[He faints.

Alarum, and retreat. Enter Edward, Warwick, Richard, Montague, Clarence, and foldiers.

Edw. Now breathe we, Lords, good fortune bids us

pause,

And fmooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.
Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen,
That led calm Henry, though he were a King,
As doth a fail fill'd with a fretting guft,
Command an argosie to stem the waves.
But think you, Lords, that Clifford fled with them?
War. No; 'tis impoffible he should escape :
For though before his face I speak the word,
Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave;
And wherefoe'er he is, he's surely dead.

[Clifford grones.

Rich. Whose foul is that which takes her heavy leave? A deadly groan, like life in death departing. See who it is,

Edw. And now the battle's ended,

If friend or foe, let him be gently used.

Rich. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;